The prison sentences demanded for Armenian detainees in Azerbaijan were predictable, attorney Siranush Sahakyan told NEWS.am in an interview. Sahakyan, who represents Armenian captives before the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), said the Azerbaijani side has adopted a general approach of requesting life imprisonment for all former leaders. She noted that although 20-year sentences were demanded for former Nagorno-Karabakh presidents Bako Sahakyan and Arkadi Ghukasyan, this was due to Azerbaijani legislation prohibiting life sentences for defendants aged 65 or older.
“Considering that the other prisoners of war are essentially accused not of directly organizing but of participating, here the sentences have been slightly mitigated, and instead of life imprisonment, long-term imprisonment has been requested. We are confident that these sentences will be upheld in the verdicts, that guilty judicial acts will be issued for everyone, and that no person’s innocence will be established, which is another manifestation of the ongoing anti-Armenian policy. Formally, there are opportunities for appeals. In previous cases, some public defenders formally appealed these judicial acts, but the outcome did not change at all.
To create the illusion of due process, I am sure that public defenders will file formal appeals, but they will be rejected, and we have no expectation of a positive outcome in Azerbaijan,” she said.
Sahakyan emphasized that the focus must shift to international judicial bodies. “Azerbaijan has ratified numerous agreements related to human rights and recognized the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights and the quasi-judicial bodies of the UN. After the completion of these domestic processes, and perhaps parallel to the formal appeals, intensive complaints must be submitted to these international bodies, where the issue of systemic and severe violations of guarantees during these sham trials must be raised. The expectation is that these bodies will record that the trials did not comply with international human rights standards and that the judicial acts adopted as a result cannot be considered legitimate.
Thus, with the involvement of international bodies, we can neutralize internationally the legal-political significance of these unlawful judicial acts,” she stressed.
Sahakyan stated that at present, seven Armenians have already been sentenced in Azerbaijan, receiving between 15 and 20 years in prison. “We have cases that have been submitted, one case is in the stage of communication, and some cases have been submitted within the scope of an interstate complaint; I believe the government representative may provide some comments regarding them.”
She added that families have also filed individual cases. “The case of Lyudvig Mkrtchyan is precisely within the scope of an individual complaint. We have raised the violation of the right to a fair trial, and all the illegalities that occurred in the Baku military court have been presented to the court in their full extent and detail.”
When asked about the health condition of Armenian captives in Baku, Sahakyan said: “We have no information. The ECHR requested such information, and November 4 was the deadline. In the cases led by me, I have not yet received notification from the court, but the office of the representative on legal matters clarified that they received information about an extension of the deadline from the court, which means that Azerbaijan did not provide information within the given period and asked the court for additional time. Therefore, we must wait and see what information will be provided. This concerns all 23 captives.
We have had no information about our captives since June, because that is when the Red Cross last met them.
The Azerbaijani side organizes phone calls—one call per week for those with detainee status and one to two calls per month for the seven persons with convicted status.
These calls deepen concerns more than they provide assurance that everything is normal, that there are no life-threatening dangers, and that there is a real expectation that repatriation will take place. The calls are monitored.”
Sahakyan concluded that Azerbaijan’s lack of transparency further intensifies fears regarding the condition of the captives.